For many plants, asset optimisation and its inherent increase in productivity is no more than wishful thinking. That is because you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Wonderware believes that its DTAnalyst is changing all that.
Every plant experiences downtime. Even the most sophisticated state-of-the-art systems are not immune to problems. While keeping the line running efficiently involves the improved utilisation of assets, it is not always the more obvious machine failures that create downtime and production loss. Operator failure or problems at any point during the manufacturing and/or packaging process can affect a plant's production and, naturally, its profit levels. For a plant to be successful, all its components of operations, maintenance and productions must work together as a single, well-oiled machine.
"The 10 or 20-minute shutdowns tend to be noticed whereas the one or two-minute unplanned work stoppages are largely ignored," says Mike le Plastrier, MD, Futuristix-Wonderware. "So there is a need in both discrete and process industries for a solution that will sit on top of existing factory systems and that will monitor, identify, measure and analyse these events in a way that promotes equipment reliability and efficiency." If getting to the root cause of these problems is difficult, it is because manufacturing lines are typically sequential, making it difficult to track the true cause of temporary stoppages.
"Often the operator is busy and the data is recorded on a clipboard, making it potentially inaccurate and incomplete as well as unavailable for possibly several days," continues le Plastrier. "What is really needed is realtime data that can be gathered automatically and translated into useful information without delay." DTAnalyst, Wonderware's web-based downtime tracking software, uses the plant's existing information technology (IT) infrastructure. Running on a plant-floor PC via a browser, it can monitor production systems from a variety of data sources such as dedicated controllers (PLCs), human machine interface (HMI) applications (eg InTouch) and external databases.
"Rather than posting data to a clipboard," says le Plastrier, "the operator can work with the production supervisor to set up rules and parameters which will allow DTAnalyst to make decisions based on these criteria. These events and their associated triggers are not limited to a machine's wearable parts. They could also include supply problems, operator problems upstream or any number of manufacturing-related events up or downstream. This configuration information and confirmed downtime results are stored on a SQL Server database, which provides live feedback to the operator via a web browser." From a production perspective, DTAnalyst provides plant floor personnel with the tools they need to measure production, line or shift performance.
Having data on specific downtimes and efficiencies in realtime, operators or production supervisors can rapidly pinpoint a problem as well as its cause and make informed decisions on how to respond.
When efficiency falls, DTAnalyst provides accurate, realtime information that allows plant supervisory personnel to immediately isolate the cause of the slowdown. "DTAnalyst gives the user - the person who has the most knowledge of the plant - the ability to achieve new levels of efficiency based on that knowledge," says le Plastrier. "This is another example of the logic of Wonderware's 'bottoms-up' approach in action." DTAnalyst also helps to identify under-performing equipment, giving the plant manager the knowledge and hard data needed to involve the vendor in a quality improvement programme, and, by converting realtime data into context, helping to justify the funding to upgrade the equipment or replace it.
From a maintenance perspective, DTAnalyst complements and extends Wonderware's enterprise asset management (EAM) solution, Avantis, which tracks and analyses specific maintenance-related utilisation of assets for maximum uptime. Marrying the two applications provides a rich history of maintenance-related data as well as access to realtime information. To date, by fully integrating DTAnalyst and Avantis with the company's InTouch scada solution, Wonderware claims to be the only company to have formalised the link between process control technologies and EAM.
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